Daniel Abraham's "A Private Letter from Genre to Literature"

[DiapDealer]

The subsequent comments can be amusing as well. Read the entire "letter" here:

http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/201...to-literature/

Excerpts:

A Private Letter from Genre to Literature

I saw you tonight. You were walking with your cabal from the university to the little bar across the street where the professors and graduate students fraternize. You were in the dark, plain clothes that you think of as elegant. I have always thought they made you look pale. I was at the newsstand. I think that you saw me, but pretended not to. I want to say it didn't sting.

Please, please, darling let us stop this. This artificial separation between us is painful, it is undignified, and it fools no one. In company, we sneer at each other and make those cold, cutting remarks. And why? You laugh at me for telling the same stories again and again. I call you boring and joyless. Is it wrong, my dear, that I hope the cruel things I say of you cut as deeply as the ones you say of me?

.
.
.

But allow me this, dear: what you do is crueler. You take the best of me, my most glorious moments - Ursula LeGuin and Dashiell Hammet, Mary Shelly and Philip Dick - and you claim them for your own. You say that they "transcend genre". There are no more heartless words than those. You disarm me. You know, I think, that if we were to compare our projects honestly -- my best to yours, my mediocrities to yours, our failures lumped together -- this division between us would vanish, and so you skim away my cream and mock me for being only milk.

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.
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What do our friends make of our assignations, do you think? Those nights when you come to me and we find ourselves in each other's arms must seem comic to them, given how much we rail against each other in the day. And don't tell me that no one knows. Cormac McCarthy took the Pulitzer for a post-apocalyptic horror novel. Junot Díaz won his joking about Gorilla Grodd and describing violence in terms of hit points. Wuthering Heights is as much romance as ghost story. Roth's The Plot Against America was alternate history. Ishiguro wrote Remains of the Day and also Never Let Me Go. Faber wrote Under the Skin. Whitehead, Zone One. Don't let's start on Atwood. Everyone can see that you want me as much as I want you. And more than that. I have begun to suspect you need me, my dear.

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Come to me, my love. Come to me tonight. I will meet you at midnight in the garden outside my bedroom. I will wear those bright, lurid, exciting things that are my signature. You bring those pretentions that are your best and worst aspect, and - can I hope? - the willingness to shed them.

[Nancy Fulda]

>>This artificial separation between us is painful, it is undignified, and it fools no one.

I love this. What a great expression of a situation that has puzzled and agitated readers for so many years.

[Terisa de morgan]

Very beautiful, thank you for share it.

[BeccaPrice]

cross-posted just about everywhere.

"you skim away my cream and mock me for being only milk" - oh, yeah!

[anamardoll]

Am I the only person on earth who thinks the genre/literature "separation" is as artificial as the supposed "War On Christmas" and only sustained by the pretentious?

I don't mean that in a dismissive way against this article, because I realize that some authors Who Shall Not Be Named have sneered at genre in the past, but to be honest I rarely LISTEN to authors' opinions on their own works. I may love the work, I may love the author, but that doesn't mean I think they can be objective about their baby.

I've got a degree in literature and I think Atwood's works are some of the best things I've ever read, but I've no problem classifying a good fair whack of her work as apocalyptic sci-fi, along with Orwell and Philip K. Dick.

If there really is some Great War On Genre that *isn't* entirely composed of biased authors and a few pretentious readers, I guess I've been missing out because I've never heard of such a thing before the "Speculative Fiction" conversation in the other thread.

Maybe I'm just in a warm happy place, but everyone I know just uses the "literature" label as a kind-of-hard-to-otherwise-classify genre tag. "Oryx and Crake"? Sci-fi. "Alias Grace"? Literature. It's not a question of quality to me-and-those-near-and-dear, it's a question of content.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Am I the only person on earth who thinks the genre/literature "separation" is as artificial as the supposed "War On Christmas" and only sustained by the pretentious?

Not at all. They are artificial. Cream rises and crap gets flushed. All other classifications are rather trivial.

[JDK1962]

Oh god...not again...

<runs screaming back to his Kindle with the lighted cover and hides under the covers>

[thebestjeter]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

Am I the only person on earth who thinks the genre/literature "separation" is as artificial as the supposed "War On Christmas" and only sustained by the pretentious?

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Not at all. They are artificial. Cream rises and crap gets flushed. All other classifications are rather trivial.

Totally agreed.

[taosaur]

These periodic kvetch-fests about the depredations genre suffers at the hands of cruel, pretentious literature do remind me of the "War on Christmas," insofar as the narrative of conflict is maintained almost solely by the party claiming persecution. Also in both cases, the wounded-bird routine is performed on behalf of a group that holds an overwhelming majority, and an even larger share of resources.

Let us weep for Goliath, that he must face a child with a sling.

[thebestjeter]

Originally Posted by taosaur

These periodic kvetch-fests about the depredations genre suffers at the hands of cruel, pretentious literature do remind me of the "War on Christmas," insofar as the narrative of conflict is maintained almost solely by the party claiming persecution. Also in both cases, the wounded-bird routine is performed on behalf of a group that holds an overwhelming majority, and an even larger share of resources.

Let us weep for Goliath, that he must face a child with a sling.

I can't agree more. Karma to you. Perfect analogy.

[DiapDealer]

Fantasy author (and friend of Daniel Abraham) Sam Sykes liked Daniel's letter (thought it was sweet), but didn't think he quite nailed the proper tone.

Sam's rendition of "The letter."
(This link goes to a blog post that contains profanity, vulgarity and crudeness. If that sort of thing is not your cup of tea, then by all means, don't follow the link.)

I really don't care what their intentions were; they make me laugh... and that's really my only interest here (plus I'm a huge fan of snark—in case you didn't notice).

(Read Sam's first comment after the post for his true opinion on the "war.")

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Sam's rendition of "The letter."
(contains some NSFW language, so I'm only linking)

Oy. Because what this War On Christmas REALLY needed was a heavy dose of misogynistic language.

I don't know who Sam Sykes is, but now I know what he thinks of my gender, apparently. And knowing is half the battle, I guess. *sigh*

[DiapDealer]

I don't know who Sam Sykes is, but now I know what he thinks of my gender, apparently.

Why? Just Why? Why ya gotta read things people didn't write?

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Why? Just Why? Why ya gotta read things people didn't write?

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Did you not read it or do you just read it as 'ironic' because you haven't had to deal with that word being directed at you? May I suggest that it can feel different from this side of the fence?

At least the first "letter" at least attempted (best I could see, I only read the quoted portion, and very briefly) a sort of gender-neutrality -- Genre and Literature could presumably be any gender. The second "letter" is a hate screed of all caps which liberally uses woman-hating language (including a word which I will not reproduce here), as well as the stereotype that Literature is a flighty woman who left male Genre in order to 'find herself' and additionally makes ridiculous phone answering messages saying same. Lovely.

It would seem to me that the biggest difference in "tone" is that the second letter felt like the first letter was too gender-neutral and needed more misogynistic language. If you want to page Dr. Freud, by all means, because the author of that second "letter" has seriously unresolved issues with women, imho.

The contrast is especially amusing since literature aimed at women is, imho, more likely to be shoved into the Genre bucket. But, no, if you want to rail against Literature, you need to make Literature a woman-figure so that you can use handy misogynist language in your screed. Nice.

[DiapDealer]

I'm fairly certain that Sam Sykes doesn't have a misogynistic bone in his body, but you're clearly going to believe what you want to believe... so further interaction about it is obviously rather pointless.